The Cancer Woman

The sign of Cancer is female and therefore immersed in charcateristics that, obviously, can more truthfully embody women rather than men.

The Cancer woman has particular sensitiveness and empathy; she has a powerful capability of being nourishing, protecting and safeguarding life in each form.

Once it was said that Cancer was designated to be the “cradle of manifestation” because it was considered the sign in which the Divine Mother resided. On a symbolic level, the Cancer woman is deeply in contact with the great sea of the unconscious from which the creatures “come to the light”, as the individual conscience that finds substance and psychic wisdom in it.

The Cancer woman has a strong motherly sense and is particularly in syntony with childhood and with children, because she maintains a favourable relationship with her childhood; for the quality of her sentiments and her emotions she has a psychology that makes her inclined to carry the male projections of the “soul” and, therefore, her sides are those strongly kept by the patriarchal world of the true “female model”. The problem in fact is that what is considered the best quality of this sign, almost always is its dark side, the one less conscious, that is the immature side of the sign which has to be developed.

In fact, this shapeless and passive manner of being belongs to a stage of development of the female still particularly primitive in which sensitiveness is used to capture the desires of others giving them a shape even before they become obvious. These features return the wonderful and very ductile woman, still also very “deceitfully” to itself and to others because, rather than growing and becoming independent, she ends up “feeding” the needs of others to create a net in which she ensures relationships that she considers vital, nevertheless showing a side of her that is not true and that, above all, is not independent.

When this happens the Cancer woman is identified as being the archetype “adorable doll”, which remains infantile from a personal psychological point of view because she does not work on the development of her identity and individuality, but instead becomes the image that reflects what men expects of her. Although initially this attitude can be particularly winning, actually it is a real problem because it moves the barycentre of her identity onto the man and onto others, becoming dependent from him and from relations that are indispensable to establish the personal value that she does not manage to give to herself.

When the Cancer woman plays this game her identity becomes fragile and she does not even manage to support herself any more, or maintain contact with her inner world, the only place she can find indications about her integrity and authenticity.

The fame of fragility that the Cancer woman maintains is still unfortunately tied to this stereotype of a female that has done a lot and gives comfort to a certain part of male world; in fact the Cancer woman has a great strength that is shown in the ability to be supportive and of remaining in contact with the world of emotions and of sentiments, being able to give value to herself rather than giving herself in exchange of external security always precarious and uncertain.

In fact, the Cancer woman is suited to protection and it cannot do anything to look for protection from the outside: being nevertheless the most “female” sign, it is also the sign that has undergone the most powerful heritages of the patriarchy in which the winning woman seemed to be “delicate and sensitive”, but obviously without the will and identity that evokes the protection of strong and warlike man, who in exchange for his services, asks her to sacrifice her individuality.

In fact, the Cancer woman must contact her strength that is an inner, typical strength of the female world, a strength that offers support, which can give life and take care of it, a strength that can be expressed through softness and sensitiveness but that is also an independent ability of fighting to free herself and others.

If these traits will not be developed, this woman may become very angry when she realises that her life does not belong to her and that she is living like a leaf in the wind that goes where others carry it.

Since by nature she is particularly inclined to perceive the projections of passivity and of dependence from the male world, she must know that in this case she is condemned to the use of underlying power that will be acted on to obtain what she needs without ever asking for it directly, although this will alienate her completely from her centre, losing dignity and value up to the point that she is reduced to accusing others of what she does to herself.

The woman of this sign must work on her identity, to discover what she has inside, what her feelings and needs are, and to learn to express them directly: then she will become a “nourisher” and will be able to develop that “female spirit” that has disappeared so much in searching for male models that are not appropriate for women.

The Cancer woman, for her complicity and closeness with the unconscious is also the bearer of memory and of the past, indispensable information to feed the future by maintaining strong roots within the inwardness: she is a woman who must be conscious of the value of the female and of the power that she has on the ability to geenrate and regenerate. Otherwise she will be for a victim of suffering, sadness and melancholy due to the dependence she will create, and of which she will be a victim looking outside for almost nothing while ignoring the huge treasure which Nature, her mother, has provided for her.